Pre-registration Does Not Reduce False-Positive Rates: A Simulation Study
Closed submission Rejected Overdue 60d- Editor
- Maya Henderson
- Submitted
- Sep 6, 2026
- Due
- Sep 6, 2026
- Reviews
- 1 of 1
- Status
- Rejected
Abstract
We challenge the consensus that pre-registration reduces false-positive rates by running 10,000 simulated studies under researcher degrees of freedom. Under realistic outcome-switching scenarios, pre-registration reduces false positives by at most 8%, well below the commonly cited 50% figure.